I read an article in School Bus Fleet magazine that upset me greatly. "This year's school bus stop-arm running survey found 85,279 violations in a single day, which represents more than 15 million violations in a 180-day school year."

Over the years as school bus drivers we've noticed some confusion amongst motorists when encountering a school bus picking up and dropping off children. In light of National School Bus Safety Week we'd like to present motorists with information regarding school bus stops to help them help us transport children to and from school safely. Here is some information that may help:

You will find school buses on the same roads at the same time every school day. If this interferes with your schedule you may want to change your time or route. (Please remember it is not our intention to impede traffic.)

School bus drivers activate flashing amber warning lights (yellow) at least 300 feet before school bus stops. (The length of two telephone poles.)

School bus drivers activate flashing red lights (stop-arms) when the bus comes to a complete stop and the door is open, allowing children to either enter or exit the school bus. Please watch for children crossing in front of your vehicle. Please be patient as it will take a couple of seconds for the bus to resume moving, allowing children to be seated safely.

It is illegal for a motorist to pass a school bus with their red stop-arms engaged. That applies on private roads, parking lots, school grounds as well as public roadways. Every person convicted of passing a stopped school bus shall for a first conviction receive a fine of not less than $250, no more than $400 or by imprisonment of not more than 30 days or both. Passing a stopped school bus is a five-point violation.

School Bus Drivers can report motorists to DMV who illegally pass school buses that are stopped on the highway with their red lights flashing.

A police officer has the authority to direct traffic to proceed through activated bus flashers. This ends when the police officer leaves the scene.

I read a statement from School Bus Fleet magazine that I think says it all. "Any driver who passes a stopped school bus illegally is gambling with a child's life."

We would like to thank you in advance for helping us get children to and from school safely.

TAMMY COVIELLO

REGINA ASTOR

ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN'S SAFETY

The Tea Party Didn't

To The Editor,

I don't think the extremists in America are the Tea Party. I think the extremists are Barack Obama and his thugs. The Tea Party didn't lie to the American People.

The Tea Party didn't tell the people that they could:

1. Keep their insurance plans.

2. Keep their doctors.

3. They'll save at least $2500 on their insurance.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin did.

The Tea Party never threatened anyone.

The extremists are the ones who assassinated presidents. Oswald, a Communist. John Wilkes Booth, a Socialist. As all the assassins and would-be's were lefties. And not a single one was a Republican.

As all the "youth" killers at schools and shopping centers were leftists . . . All of whom played violent video games and took drugs of one or another kind . . . The Tea Party and law abiding gun owners are not the ones who shot innocent people. Loons associated with Occupied Wall Street have.

The Tea Partyists are not the ones making this nation second rate. Barack Obama and his crew are doing that.

The Tea Party and George Bush didn't make America lose prestige and respect across the world. Barack Obama did that, thank you.

The Tea Party didn't encourage The Arab Spring as tens of thousands died.

The Tea Party didn't support The Muslim Brotherhood. The Tea Party wasn't attempting to reinstall them to spread more of their cancer. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did that.

The Tea Party did not cause the nation's first credit downrate. Or threaten the second. Obama and his crew are doing that.

The Tea Party is not responsible for dead Americans at Beghazigate and dead Americans after Fast & Furious, the IRS' targeting Obama's political enemies, Solyndragate, Pigs with Lipstick, and a failed healthcare website followed by a failed health care system.

Obama did it all, as the buck stops on his desk, not on mine, not yours . . . and certainly not on George Bush's.

As Barack's ideas were not tested in the real world and failed for the real world.

That's socialism for you. Once tested it is bound to fail.

And it matters not a whit if Sarah Palin sees Vladivostok from her front porch! The Tea Party didn't need to "fix" Apple's software. Obama didn't need to fix it either. Apple, responsible for what they did corrected their far more complex website, in a single day. Obamacare's failure is not Apple's fault. Not George Bush's either.

Obama and his people are responsible for all of the astonishing failures and tragedies listed, for the failures he spins as if they were successes, except for Apple's success, which Obama had nothing to do with.

The Tea Party is not responsible for millions of jobs not coming back. For 49 million Americans on food stamps - and Obama's losing The War on Poverty. For half the nation winding up on one or another dependency program. Obama and his Chicago-based thugs are directly responsible for that, as the aforementioned half of the nation voted for him.

The Tea Party is not breaking this nation.

Neither is the Federal Reserve.

Obama's and the Democrat's fiscal and social policies are doing all that.

It is not the Tea Party spending our nation into insolvency. The Democrats in their successful steamrolling over the Republican minority are doing it.

You can however hold the Tea Party accountable, you can hold me accountable, for pointing out all of the above to Obama and his clueless, selfish, condescending, foolish and depraved fans and lapdog media.

And the foolish millionaires who supported him.

ANDREW BENJAMIN

Editor's note: Let us not forget our own disgraced Congressman Tim Bishop when mentioning the prominent lapdogs who told the big lie about Obamacare to the public.